yiff

English

Etymology

Yiff is part of a range of onomatopoeic words that form a pseudo-language used by the furry role-playing community: yiff, yip, yerf, yaff, yarf, growf, and growlf (in order from most positive connotations to most negative connotations). Yiff meant yes or an exuberant hello!. Later, yiff was assigned a meaning of a sexual proposition, a meaning that had previously been assigned to yipp (a coarse form of yip).

Interjection

yiff

1. (onomatopoeic, apocryphal) Representing the bark of a fox (especially while mating).
2. (of a person, informal) To express happiness, to state that something is sexy.

Noun

yiff (usually uncountable; plural yiffs)

1. (informal) A bark.
2. (slang, informal) The act of yiffing.
   • 1996-07-14, j.serdy, “RFC: A Beginner’s Guide to TinySex on the FurryMuck”, alt.fan.furry^[1],

     Of course the inverse is possible with all these possibilities, and you can be having a yiff with a partner in the room with you and be having a pleasant non-sexual conversation with another remote player through a page-conversation.

3. (slang, informal) Pornography of furries (fictional anthropomorphic animal characters).

   Do you draw yiff?

Translations

sound a fox makes

Dutch: woef (nl), waf (nl), blaffen (nl) German: bellen (de), kläffen (de)

Portuguese: au (pt), auau (pt)

furry pornography

Verb

yiff (third-person singular simple present yiffs, present participle yiffing, simple past and past participle yiffed)

1. (intransitive, apocryphal) For a fox to bark.
2. (intransitive, of a person, apocryphal) To bark like a fox (especially in a sexual way).
3. (transitive and intransitive, slang, informal) To have sex, to mate.
   • 1997-10-17, StarChaser, “What to genocide”, rec.games.roguelike.nethack^[2],

     Monsters snicker at me, succubi refuse to be seen with me, my dog tries to yiff my leg, shopkeepers say ‘No shirt, no shoes, no service’.

   • 1997-09-22, Locandez, “Hypothetical Question #3: acting natural”, alt.lifestyle.furry^[3],

     And even if foxes are allowed to yiff more than once, I’d still have to wait for the vixen to come into heat.

   • 1997-09-23, MegaDog the Nettweiler, “Hypothetical Question #3: acting natural”, alt.lifestyle.furry^[4],

     Well, i’ve witnessed male foxes queueing up to yiff one of my local vixens… repeatedly!

4. (transitive and intransitive, slang, informal) To cybersex, to have cybersex, to sext.

Derived terms

• yiffy
• yiffer
• yiffable

Translations

(of a person) to bark like a fox

to have sex

Dutch: seks hebben (nl) French: baiser (fr)

German: vögeln (de)

to cybersex, to have cybersex, to sext

References

• "Yiff", A Furry Glossary
• Definition of "yiff", Furtopia
• LittleFox’s own explanation of the etymology of "Yiff", Everything2, accessed on 2005-03-30 (bottom of page)

Anagrams

• iffy

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Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English ġif.

Conjunction

yiff

1. if
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Lydgate Fall of Princes

     Yiff ther was lak, thou woldest crie & pleyne.

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Lydgate Fall of Princes

     And yiff that trust with pryncis wil nat tarie,
     Litil merueile thouh the peeple varie…

   • (Can we date this quote?) Geoffrey Chaucer

     […] That yiff that god that hevene and erthe made
     Wolde haue a love For beaute and goodness
     And womanhede and trouthe and semelynesse […]

Etymology 2

From Old English giefan.

Verb

yiff

1. Alternative form of yiven.
   • 1393, Jean d’Arras Roman de Melusine

     Another ordre to you yiff I shall,
     A knyght will you mak of full hye degre
     As your brethren ben named ryght roiall.